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Pigeon Roasted

Roasted pigeon served with giblet gravy and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,856 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Pigeon Roasted

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Stuff the pigeons as you would for roasted chickens.

  2. Rub the pigeons well with butter and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

  3. Place the pigeons on slices of bacon in a roasting pan.

Roast

  1. Add 1 cup of boiling water to the pan.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven, basting often.

  3. Turn the pigeons to ensure they brown on both sides.

Serve

  1. Serve with giblet gravy and currant jelly.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pigeons
Provide the main meat, which cooks through and browns in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat that carries seasoning and promotes browning on the skin.
Bacon slices
Lay under the birds, releasing fat and flavor as they roast.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and acidity that balance the rich pigeon meat.

The step that matters

Turning the pigeons to brown both sides. Birds left in one position can brown unevenly and dry on the exposed side. Turning them lets fat and heat reach all surfaces, so the skin browns evenly and the meat cooks more uniformly.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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